


Hopeless

by straightouttapopstar



Series: Askran Standards [2]
Category: Fire Emblem Heroes, Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Longing, M/M, fluff??? haha no thank you I prefer suffering, minor graphical part but nothing bad, ruining kamuzero is my best skill yeah, sequel to Expectations, this is proper angsty woo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-28 10:15:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13901895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straightouttapopstar/pseuds/straightouttapopstar
Summary: Was he without hope?Was asking for love just asking for too much?





	1. Hopeless

**Author's Note:**

> Woooo high school is ruining me again and final exams are in 2 months so my situation is no good :(  
> But I’ll always find time for those dorks—I’ve been holding the idea of writing the continuation of Expectations for very long; the main reason why I speedwrote this in two days was because of a very lovely comment left for me on the original Expectations about 2 days ago—thank you, No_Off_Switch, for motivating me to finally get on with this plan :D phew now I can rest  
> Anyways, this is a continuation of Niles’ fate—happens about a year after Expectations. I do hope you enjoy!!!  
> (I do recommend you read Expectations before you read this, as this may seem a little confusing otherwise)

War was afoot.

That’s what they’ve been saying for the last year. And I believe them.

“Reinforcements—fast! We’re losing ground!”—Fjorm’s desperate shouts reached my ears, clashing with the deafening sound of metal weapon hitting metal weapon—or sometimes, penetrating even the softest flesh, setting the soldiers’ voices and efforts afire.

But was war new to me?

No; I discerned, pointing an arrow at an enemy wyvern—I’ve grown accustomed to war more than I wanted to admit. I let go of the bowstring, letting the sharp arrow pierce the airborne beast, which immediately fell to the ground with a heavy thud. The person tried to climb out from under their steed, courageously braving the pain of the weight that had fallen dead above them—but in seconds, I stood above them, just like the weeping clouds cried over us all on that day.

They didn’t look too comfortable at the sight.

“P-Please spare m—“

“Spare you?”—I apathetically spat, quickly pushing another arrow through their right hand and consequently pinning it to the ground—“Really? Is this just how pathetic you shall be in your last moments?”

They whined in response—and I found the delightful noise so satisfying that shivers slowly raced up and down my limbs with pleasure.

“P-Please—s-stop! Augh, it hurts so damn much! Ah, please... _stop..._ ”

“Haha, sweetie”—I kneeled down, level with their feeble body, and cupped their face in my dirtied hands—“you have no idea just how much I’m enjoying this spectacle you have put up here for me. How... _tantalizing_.”

With their only able hand, they began to bang on the muddy ground, biting their lips to suppress the moans of pain that kept escalating in volume. Truly, this whole charade was entertaining—but seeing my teammates struggle put me off of sadism a little for the moment. Therefore, without an another word to the Muspellian soldier, I briefly stabbed their right hand with another piercing arrow—and their struggles had been finally silenced. Having tidied up from my fun, I took my bow in my hands and stood up, ready to brave the pain and pleasure of fighting.

Having noticed me, readied for battle, the raging Kiran pointed with their finger at the furthest point on the flaming scenery—and called out—“Niles, go take care of the rightmost front! Now!”

I didn’t need to be told twice, of course—holding my bow extra safely, close to my chest, I dashed through the barren, volcanic grounds, in pursuit of my target far, far away. I was prepared to kill anyone, at Kiran’s request. It took months for me to finally become useful as a unit—at Kiran’s recommendation, I was put through an intensive unit training program to hone my precision, as well as power in battle. It took time, months, sleepless nights, to finally become truly equipped mentally as well as physically for the real war. I was not about to lose this chance to prove to the summoner that I was a worthy fighter. I wasn’t about to waste so much time I spent training just to show that I was sufficiently good.

Sufficiently good, in this kind of war, was no longer enough, I observed—even the most able fighters tripped on thin air sometimes, thrown off by their own distracted and fatigued mind. Often, that cost them more than just a bit of a gentle stab through the chest.

So soon I had arrived at my destination—sliding along the ground, I noticed that I had arrived at a more ‘secluded’ part of the battlefield. Very little was happening here; the burnt, stick-like trees were dangerously swaying with the wind, and the sky kept shedding tears—but otherwise, everything looked normal—as normal as a raging battlefield could be, full of crying, deafening noise, and permeated with the expired stench of drying blood.

Except for a single person.

I squinted into the distance—there he stood. With a flaming golden sword, a little ruby in its hilt. There he was, with his slightly masculine figure, white-and-black contrasting armour that I would recognize anywhere, even if I were half-blind.

I continued to stand still quite a distance from him, observing how his petite shoulders rose with every breath in, and every exhale. How his dishevelled silver hair tangoed in the breeze.

I could barely hear Kiran screaming—“Niles! Don’t just stand there—fight that shapeshifter!”

“What shapeshifter?”

What? But I had this—this knowing intuition, this gut feeling that that was Kamui, just as he had always been. He was smiling at me, now—and I couldn’t resist walking closer towards that mirage. Hell, I don’t think I would have cared even if I acknowledged that it wasn’t really him—I was so worn out by the fact that I hadn’t seen him for a year now. I missed him. He constituted roughly 99% of my impulse control—without him I had been lost, like a particle of dust in a vacuum. I hadn’t felt joy for twelve months straight—the closest to excitement that I felt on a regular basis was from the thought that, one day; maybe just one day, the real Kamui will finally come to me. And I’ll be able to embrace my husband, and see my children. I could no longer bear the thought of Nina and Kana being left by themselves with Kamui. Just how did they feel? They were all probably distressed, I had hoped. My biggest hope was that I hadn’t been forgotten—my biggest wish is that they’d all keep me in their hearts, safely stored away, until we’d meet again.

But if this one, risky choice would allow me to feel happiness—then who was I to deny the opportunity?

Once Kamui noticed that I had been walking towards him, he began sprinting to me in pure ecstasy—at this sight, my heart began to sway uncomfortably, and I had to hold a hand to my chest to stop it from hurting so much. It felt just like the old times I wanted to experience once again.

Him, and me; and no one else.

In those echoing, empty Nohrian halls, where shadows played tricks on you as much as love did. Where we’d look at each other for hours on end, conversing about everything and nothing. I found it wonderful that there was always something that drew us to each other—even if this time, it was a very grave situation.

Soon, we had been way too close for comfort—we stood a step away from each other, as his face bore the most exhilarated smile I had ever seen him wear.

And then he spoke.

“Niles? Oh my God, Niles...N-Niles, is this you?”

The potent relief that permeated the air—it made me forget about all that pain instantly. Rebirth must have been the proper term for the feeling that had been injected into my veins like an addictive drug.

I wanted more, more—so I replied.

“ **Kamui!** Kamui, Kamui, Kamui...”

His name was so beautiful, so soothing to hear it roll off my tongue like a sweet prayer. I wanted to cry at this reunion—but at the same time I felt that I was too happy to spare tears for this occasion.

He looked into my eyes—with his, holding the same, pure childhood happiness I had witnessed the first time we met.

“Niles, I’ve missed y—“

And suddenly, his body grew limp—the childhood happiness became an extinguished bonfire—his lips were no longer joyful, but attempting to suppress a red liquid flowing out of them in spurts, with his last bouts of energy.

As he collapsed onto his knees and took his last dying breath, I think I felt Kiran’s breath on my shoulders.

“Niles, what are you doing?! You almost got yourself _killed_ , and the rest of the army too! I can’t believe I put so much effort and money into training you—and yet, you still manage to disappoint and go against my wishes. What a shame, Niles. What a _damn_ shame.”

He awaited for a response, and he got none, as I continued to stand over Kamui’s lifeless corpse, my thoughts whirring like a tempest, coming to conclusions and overthinking several light years per second.

They grasped my shoulders and shook them slightly, their petite fingers making marks of pent-up anger on my skin.

“Niles! For the love of Naga and all things holy— _look_ at me when I talk to you! I don’t know why you did this; I don’t know why you had risked your life. This shapeshifter would have killed you, Niles, if I did not stab them.”

I didn’t want to hear this. I didn’t want to listen any longer. I was comfortable with my own thoughts, the ones that found that this Kamui was the real one—not a sham, not a game of pretend.

“This was _not_ Kamui. This was a Muspellian soldier, trained to mislead you. You cannot give in like this.”

I felt their warmth leave my side—and suddenly, I felt a pang of loneliness crawl down my thoat.

“We’ll be waiting for you at the meeting point. Come to us when you’re ready, so we can go back home. Kamui is waiting for you.”

Yes, Kamui was waiting for me—theoretically, he was probably worrying his head off right now in the central hall, awaiting our arrival. He was also lying down in front of me, albeit more convincingly than I would have ever thought—I expected his scarlet-stained form to jump up any moment, laugh at me and tell me it was all a joke—that this is just an April Fools’ play, that the sharp sword that Kiran had wedged into his stomach was really just a blunt plastic stick, and that the pool of ruby liquid that had spread around the wastes was really just the consequence of an accident with a bottle of ketchup.

But even if I stood for hours on end—nothing had happened. He remained as still as when he had been laid to sleep; with eyes that had their happy lights turned off, yet open wide; with lips that had been coloured vermilion by the dried blood, like a garden overgrown with vines; and with hands that could no longer hold me, and appreciate me for who I was.

For without him, I was no one.


	2. Goodnight, my love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> miss  
> (verb)  
> 1.  
> to feel sad that a person or thing is not present.

The second I got a glimpse of the palace of Askr’s half-lit summoning hall, suddenly my vision became obscured as something rapidly collided with me, and adjusted its appendages around my waist.

The person who had been embracing me was Kamui.

“N-Niles—oh my God, Niles, I missed you so much—I thought you had _died_ out there!”

But his voice was devoid of affection; the true love that my Kamui bestowed upon me every second of my prior life. It was friendly, sure, but it made my heart ache more than if Kamui were to never show that he cared at all. Because this meant he treated me as a friend. Not his partner, second half—but of a best friend he had known for a while.

Clearly, he found it difficult to develop feelings for me.

“Yeah yeah, I’m fine...”

“You are? Oh joy, I am so relieved.”

Although when he did notice blood on my lips—which were present there due to the fulfilment of my duty; kissing Kamui goodbye for the final time—his relieved smile quickly formed into a disappointed grimace.

“Niles, there was obviously something bad going on. Is that—is that blood on—?“

“ _Don’t_ touch me”—I growled at the little draconic boy, who looked so small and benevolent, attempting to clean up the bloodstain with his own hands. What a nice kid, he was. He retracted his hands immediately, and stood with his eyes widened at my allegedly unexpected reaction.

Yes, **kid** ; that was a word I could use to describe him. He was nowhere near as knowledgeable as my husband.

“A-Alright, I shall not—maybe you’d like to come to my room so I may clean you up? You don’t look too well...”—he sighed rather quietly, only adding insult to my injured state. I probably looked like I had just suffered an electrocution; weak, battered, and unable to speak more than a few words.

“I’d rather not”—I stated flatly, giving off the impression that I certainly was not up for friendly banter at the moment.

Although, interestingly, Kamui did not pick up the obvious message.

As I began to leave the summoning hall in the direction of my familiar shadows, Kamui fell into step beside me, his expression seemingly very concerned.

“Niles, are you sure you’re okay? I feel like there is something you’re not telling me—not that I’d like to invade your privacy, or anything—“

“Well, it certainly _does_ feel like you’re trying to”—I bluntly interrupted; I really didn’t feel like talking at that moment, and my hand was dangerously tightening around my bow.

“I-I’m so sorry, I honestly don’t mean to!”—he blurted out rather loudly, making his remark bounce off of every single corner of the arching walls—“But if there’s anything bothering you, tell me. We’re friends, after all—and I wouldn’t like to see you hurting!”

Suddenly, I could no longer take the pressure—and I pushed him onto a wall on the side of the darkened hall. I made sure to place my two hands on the wall on both sides of his head, and warrant that any escape would not be successful at that moment. There was nobody but us; my red-hot rage and his slight fear too.

Its odour was rather potent as it was sweet.

“We are friends? **Friends?** ”

He visibly gulped in fear before replying—“yes, I consider you a friend! I like you a lot and I want to help you!”

“Well then, if you’re my friend, you’ll be just _overjoyed_ to hear what happened in battle today.”

I looked away from him, concentrating on the floor and feeling tears slowly bunching up in my eyes.

“I saw Kamui die.”

I couldn’t even say the full sentence—I wasn’t able to voice the last word clearly enough so that the boy could hear it, despite him being a breath’s distance away from me. I couldn’t even bear to look into his eyes—the eyes that were the same kind of ruby red that used to look at me, and cherish every part of me. I couldn’t come to terms with it still. It was too painful—my stay at this palace was like a repeating loop that only became more and more miserable the longer this war had continued. I only wanted one thing, and yet, I was able to have everything but.

It hurt.

“S-Sorry? What did you say? I couldn’t quite hear...”

“I said that **I saw Kamui die**.”

He gasped in response, and fell silent for a while.

“...I’m extremely sorry for your loss. Is it too much to ask if I could...?”

“I could _what_. Just _say it._ ”

“If I could act as a replacement for your Kamui?”

I fell silent at this suggestion—and he seemingly took it as a chance to talk even more.

“I mean, we are quite similar, right? We come from the same heritage—Nohr—and our personalities are the same too! Kamui’s just progressed more into the story, and I shouldn’t be far behind.”

He definitely did not think that through.

“What kind of **cursed idea** is this?! You are _nothing_ alike. You may be the same person, but you are nothing compared to my Kamui. He was a mature, loving, handsome man—and what are you? A mollycoddled kid? And do you wanna play the part of my marital partner at night as well?”

At that last question, he visibly winced, indicating he didn’t think it all through too well. Yet another bit of proof that he was just a little undeveloped child.

“Although, actually, I second that—seeing how you perform in bed might be _just_ the treat I need after such a day...”—my lustful murmur travelled into his ears, which subsequently reddened at my words, and he worriedly began to shake his head at me.

“N-No, please, I can’t...I don’t want to...”—he whimpered, and I retracted my arms, which freed him to flee if he so desired. He continued to stand still however; I was growing bored of his braveness schtick. I wanted to get rid of him.

If he weren’t here, I wouldn’t ever be reminded again of what I lost a year ago.

“Then get lost, _kid_. And never make claims like this ever again. I mean it—you _wouldn’t_ like to see me angry, believe me. I can bite well—in both contexts, if you please.”

His eyes widened at the double meaning of my words and he rapidly nodded, before finally detaching his back from the cold stone wall and walking away from me quite swiftly—my eyes traced his petite figure disappear in the darkness of the distant corridors.

I felt rather melancholic—and the only thing that would have cheered me up at that moment was a conversation with my distant beloved, of course.

“Kamui?”—I called out at the dust and the spiderwebs and the gloom, but no response. “Kamui, I hope you can hear me, all the way from Valla.”

All I received was the echo of my own voice—and that proved comforting enough as I smiled and kept talking to the particles hanging in the air.

“Kamui, I...I had a really bad experience today.”

No reply.

“I met a shapeshifter today; Kiran actually decided to utilise me in battle for once! You’d be proud to see just how much damage I can cause with a bow and a few arrows.”

I sat down on the freezing floor, cross-legged, hearing the bow attached to my belt hit the stone with a gentle thud.

“So anyways, about the shapeshifter; I’m pretty sure our love can transcend worlds and realms because— _surprise surprise_ —the shapeshifter turned into you. I bet that if you were here, you’d be all over this one sappy detail, going on about the power of love, blah blah.”

I took off my cape, and laid it under myself to keep my limbs warm when the floor felt like an iceberg.

“I thought they actually were you for a second, though—and I got really happy and really sad at the same time. I can’t believe just how much I miss you. The image spoke just like you do. With so much care, longing, consideration—“

My heart felt like it was being repeatedly assaulted with little needles.

“And then Kiran killed that shapeshifter. I saw your body just fall dead to the ground, with no foreword and no goodbyes. I...didn’t know how to feel.”

The wind contributed to my one-sided dialogue, filling in for the dragon with rapid wisps which blew my hair into chaos.

“And then this kid—he thinks he can replace you! He’s kind of like you? But he knows zero. He acts like a little spoiled Samaritan noble. But I don’t want him to replace you, because you cannot be replaced. No replacement exists for my feelings too. I wish you could come here, with the kids, to Askr.”

More silence.

“...For the love of Naga, I’m so _stupid_. Obviously you cannot hear me lamenting on and on”—I grimaced, gathered my belongings and stood up, arranging the benighted cape around my neck—“I think I’ll just go now. I have to rest—after all, tomorrow’s a new day, another one without you.”

As bleak as that sounded, it gave me a reason to look forward to every day.

As I began to traverse the Askran halls on the way back to my room, a distant sound kept tugging at my ears—every time the echo carried it, by the time it became loud enough for me to hear, the words were so distorted that I could not discern a single remark. The syllables started out short and quiet, but when they reached my ears they sounded absolutely chaotic.

When I turned around to inspect their source, the sight that greeted me was an empty hallway.

Although, I believed that I could faintly recognize the voice—I thought it came from above and sounded very bright and cheerful. It was a voice of hope, one that used to shout out encouragements next to me during battle—one that used to whisper soft good mornings to me everyday—one that wept for me—and one that comforted me when I wept for its owner.

“Goodnight, my love”, it whispered gently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this slightly ranty piece (oof) and if ya’ll have any ideas on how I can continue this, I will!! But for now, this is finished.  
> Please leave a kudo if you liked it :0 and comments are also greatly appreciated!! Perhaps they could motivate me to write more haha


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